ASEAN @50Volume 4: Building ASEAN Community: Political-Security and Socio-cultural Reflections

Abstract

ASEAN has gradually built, on the basis of both shared interests and common principles and norms, various practices and mechanisms that helped prevent conflict among its members and allowed it to play an autonomous role in shaping the regional security architecture. Overcoming the member states' preoccupation with their own national concerns to give way to advocacy of collective interests has remained difficult, but progress is being made. Part A of this volume looks at the processes and dynamics, challenges, and opportunities of ASEAN political-security cooperation as part of the ASEAN community-building project. The ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) Vision 2025 is a powerful statement, reinforced by an ASCC Blueprint 2025 designed to engage and benefit its peoples, with purposeful actions and outcomes that are inclusive, sustainable, resilient, and dynamic. Part B examines the ASCC's progress and explores the ASCC's newest role in empowering its people, stakeholders, and institutions as it leverages issues such as social technology, faces sustainable and resilient development pathways, and designs interactive processes and services that secure regional social integration based on shared cultural values.